Revelation Chapter Seventeen:
Historically the City of Babylon was never destroyed but atrophied over time. In the Bible we are told that Babylon is a city in a desert by the Red Sea that is to be destroyed by fire in the future, but it has not as yet happened. In Revelation Chapter 17 the Apostle John saw this city and its destruction at the hands of the very same beast empire she has been riding and by their hand at God’s command she becomes toast! This city of Babylon to be destroyed is a literal city according to the Bible. This city is described as “the great harlot who sits on many waters.” In other words she is a city that trades via the sea and wheels and deals with “peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.” (Vs.15) through her she has caused the nations to turn away from God and to become intoxicated with the maddening ‘wine’ of its oil. She is also the source of all false religions tracing their roots back to the Babylon of Nimrod (Vs.2).
Now let’ look at the text…
Exposition:
(Vs 1-2) “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”
Today the city of Mecca is ripe for judgement. This city “sits on many waters” which John tells us represents “peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.” (Vs.15) Mecca trades by the sea and exports oil to many nations. Of course Iran is a rival in this matter but with the sanctions against Iran stopping them from exporting oil it makes them more militant towards Saudi Arabia which the Islamic fundamentalist regime of Iran considers a harlot because of the Saudis associations with western democracies. Historically fundamentalist Muslims have attacked Mecca before but have never succeeded in destroying it. The Saudis are dead scared of Iran. When you consider the Bush Administration they were in bed with the Saudis through the maddening intoxication of oil.
Today the Saudis are looking to America to safeguard them against an attack from Iran so sanctions against Iran by stopping their oil exports gives the Saudis and America more chance to ‘up the ante’ on exporting oil to the detriment of Iran. It is also clear that Iran has every intention to produce missiles with nuclear warheads. It is only a matter of time. The Biden Administration has effected this whole situation. Already the EU does not want to stop the nuclear dealings with Iran. Biden is seeking to put back in place the nuclear deal that Obama brokered with Iran back in 2015. Former President Trump stopped the Iranian Nucler deal in its tracks when he was in the Oval Office.
Recent statistcs reveal that Saudi Arabia exports crude petroleum worth around $110 Billion and refined petroleum worth around $14.1 Billion, Ethylene Polymers worth around $11Billion, Acyclic Alcohols worth around $6.32 Billion and Propylene Polymers worth around $4.59 Billion. Its top imports are Cars worth around $7.35 Billion, Planes, Helicopters, and/or Spacecraft worth around $3.2 Billion, Refined Petroleum worth around $2.83 Billion, Packaged Medicaments worth around $2.74 Billion and Broadcasting Equipment worth around $2.13 Billion.
The top export destinations of Saudi Arabia are China worth around $29.1 Billion, Japan worth around $25 Billion, India worth around $19.4 Billion, South Korea worth around $17.7 Billion and the United States worth around $17.3 Billion.
The top import origins are China worth around $18.3 Billion, the United States worth around $7.66 Billion, Germany worth around $7.19 Billion, South Korea worth around $5.15 Billion and France worth around $5.05 Billion.
Mecca, with its Clock Tower they call “Mt Babel” with a crescent moon at the top of its highest pinnacle, stands for Islamic domination globally. It is a reflection of the same principality or demonic spirit behind Nimrod who built the original Tower of Babel which was an affront to God. The nations that trade with Mecca via the sea port at Jeddah share in her harlotry because ‘the spirit of Babylon’ is in every nation today. Jeddah, called the “bride of the Red Sea”, is a major sea port and urban centre on the western coast of the Arabian Peninsula overlooking the Red Sea.
Jeddah is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh, Jeddah is an ancient trading city that also acts as a vital gateway to Mecca, situated on the maritime trade route connecting the Mediterranean with India, the Arabian Peninsula and south East Asia. The position of Jeddah has always made the city a perfect trading port for cargo ships travelling the Red Sea, and the city’s traditional Arabic markets and bazars reflect a history of maritime trade and exchange. Furthermore, Jeddah is one of the closest ports to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam.
Mecca is the modern city of Babylon that has its roots in the Babylon of Nimrod. Mecca is known for its opulence and luxury among the nations as was ancient Babylon. It is the rabid lust for oil that ‘intoxicates’ the nations today and they are major nations. America shares in this harlotry because every day Christians are persecuted and martyred in Saudi Arabia and America and the western nations turn a blind eye due to the intoxicating ‘euphoria’ of oil and the wealth it brings. When has the United Nations or America or other major nation ever put sanctions on Saudi Arabia? The lust for oil and the wealth it brings is the idolatry of the harlot nations imbued with hedonism, materialism and ungodly pursuits of every kind. Islam itself in its entirety is an affront to God as we see with Nimrod’s empire. Mecca is located in a desert by the red Sea. Now let’s continue…
(Vs 3) “And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness (desert); and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
The Holy Spirt, of whom the Lord Jesus said “would show us things to come,” carried John out into a wilderness or a desert. It was dry and arid place and this tells us also that it was a place of spiritual aridness. This woman was riding on the back of a beast which she sat upon for support. Now this beast was a scarlet beast, an empire satiated with blood and adorned with things that were an affront to God. It had seven heads and ten horns. The heads represented Kingdoms or empires and the horns its kings or rulers. John had also written about this in Revelation chapter thirteen. This was the first beast empire that immerged out of the restless tossing sea of humanity. (Revelation 13:1)
It had ten horns and seven heads and there were ten crowns on the ten horns and on each head a blasphemous name. It was an arrogant and verbal slanderer of God, of the people to God, and of God’s’ name by the dragon being Satan himself who gave the beast empire and its ruler authority to rule. This empire was the fourth beast empire Daniel saw that could not assimilate with any other empire that had gone before it. It was an empire that was “terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left and it was different from all of the former beast empires before it” namely, Babylon, Persia and Greece and Rome combined together, Rome also known as the Greco-Roman world because of its absorption of Greek culture, Greek gods, Greek military strategies and the Greek way of Government and politics. (Daniel 7:7)
This fourth beast empire had all of the blasphemous power, opulence, strength and military might of the other four major world empires before it combined together but maintained its own ideology and could not absorb any other culture or ideology, it had within it the swiftness of Greece to conquer swiftly as Greece had done under Alexander the Great. We see this ‘swiftness’ to conquer in Islam today. It had ferociousness of the Persians which we see in Islam today, and at Mecca, the heart of the Muslim world in Edom (The Saudi Arabian Peninsula). It had the boastful pride and arrogance and opulence of the Babylon of Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar combined with its authority and power from Satan. This empire was so powerful with the power of Satan that it could not be withstood by human power. This is the face of Islam today (Revelation 13:1-4)
This empire had ten horns or rulers. This was a federation of nations that gave their allegiance to the ideology of this beast empire. (Daniel 7:3-7) These also are the ten toes on the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue he saw in a dream. (Daniel 2:42) This first Beast Empire of Islam, resurrected in the second Beast Empire along with ten allied Islamic nations will persecute Israel in the last days but a faithful remnant of Jews chosen by God will escape. (Revelation 12:1-6, 13-16) Today the empire that hates Israel the most is the empire of Islam. This was the fourth beast empire Daniel saw with a federation of ten Islamic nations all with the one purpose, namely, the destruction of Israel as a nation and to persecute and exterminate Messianic Jews and New Covenant believers. (Revelation 12:17) There are those who see this fourth Beast Empire in Daniel chapter seven as the same one we see in Nebuchadnezzars statue in Daniel chapter two with its ‘two legs.’ They identify Rome with its western and eastern leg of the empire. However, Islam also has “two legs” namely the Sunni and Shiite divide.
This fourth beast and the harlot who rides on its back are both located in a wilderness or a desert. None of the major cities in Europe are located in a desert. Others see the City of Rome and Vatican City as the harlot with its religious harlotry and opulence and wealth but Rome itself with the Vatican is not located in a desert either, but Mecca is and that by the Red Sea. The destruction of end-time Babylon is heard at the Red Sea. (Jeremiah 49:21) If we follow the Biblical text it has to be Mecca and not Rome or New York for that matter. Now let’s continue…
(Vs.4-5) The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality,”
Some say this describes the Church of Rome historically with its Popes, priests, Bishops and other high ecclesiastical dignitaries all robed in purple and scarlet accompanied by their wealth and opulence and domination over Europe for centuries and in other parts of the world. There is no doubt that many of the religious practices and ceremonies, doctrines and dogmas and the religious garments worn by those with power in Rome and throughout Roman Catholicism, is a reflection of Ancient Babylonian culture, ideology and religions with its statues of the saints and of the Madonna and Child and seen in the doctrine of the perpetual sacrifice of Christ in the mass. All of these things originated from the Babylon of Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar, not from the Bible.
Many pagan practices and symbols were embraced by the Church of Rome and re-packaged as ‘Christian.’ Even Christmas and Easter were originally of pagan origin. There is no doubt that Martin Luther was right when he wrote his dissertation concerning the Church of Rome titled, “The Babylonian captivity of the Church.” The apostle John also would have understood the power and opulence of the Roman Empire at the time and the power of the pagan Roman Emperors (Pontiffs) who had themselves deified and worshiped as gods. The first century believers identified the City of Rome with the ancient city of Babylon. (1 Peter 5:13)
Over the following centuries the Popes (Pontiffs) became a continuation of the Roman Emperors and the Papacy immerged out of the Roman Empire after the Emperor Constantine supposedly became a Christian and made Christianity the official religion of the empire. Of course Constantine did not do away with the worship of pagan gods and their practices and ‘Christianised’ pagan feasts and festivals. Many of these were adopted into the Church by unsaved Popes, clergy, and Bishops and just repackaged and re-named as ‘Christian.’ One of the greatest sins of the Church of Rome is idolatry where people genuflect and bow down to images and statues of the saints including the Madonna and child and even before the bread and the wine on the altar which is worshipped as God incarnate in that Rome teaches that Jesus is sacrificed perpetually in the offering of the bread and the wine made by the priest.
These practices are factual but refuted by scripture. One cannot stay in Roman Catholicism and avoid the sin of idolatry which is strictly forbidden in the Ten Commandments in the Torah given to Moses that were written personally by the finger of God Himself. (Deuteronomy 9:10) Down through the centuries many Jews did not become Christians because of this form of idolatry within Roman Catholicism. But is this what John saw? Is Rome an end-time harlot riding the beast empire and a city all located in a desert by the Red Sea? Let’s continue…
(Vs.5) “…and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
The religious system of Ancient Babylon had many secrets (mysteries) into which they initiated their followers. These rites included male and female prostitution, which worshipped the mother and child. This religion spread throughout the then- known world being the nations of Greece, Egypt, Italy, Phoenicia, Israel, India, Asia Minor and Europe. This is why she is called “the Mother of Harlots.” Nimrod’s Babylon, seen in the culture and religious practices of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, is the source of all false religions we see today including much that transpires within wider Christendom with its apex at the Vatican in Rome. Ecumenism and interfaith associations clearly reveal this fact. Ancient Babylon and Rome were multi-cultural and multi-faith societies as we see today in many nations including the western democracies historically associated with Christianity.
This harlot city John sees has its cultural roots in Ancient Babylon and is seen in a desert. Islam itself was spawned in Mecca. Most historians believe that Islam originated in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century, approximately 600 years after the founding of Christianity. Whether it is Rome or New York or hedonistic Europe and the western democracies it is all Babylon. The whole ungodly, unbiblical world system with its pleasures, ambitions, and pre-occupation with the lusts and pursuits of the flesh is all a reflection of Ancient Babylonian culture and religious practices. According to John in Revelation Chapter seventeen Babylon is a literal city in a desert. Historically Babylon as a city was never destroyed. Its destruction still lies in the future.
(Vs.6-7) “And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered greatly. And the angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.”
There is no doubt that the blood of the martyrs both Jews and Bible believing Christians was shed by the Church of Rome especially during the inquisition. The persecution of faithful Bible believing Christians was first perpetrated by the Caesars of Rome and after them by the Popes of Rome. The Inquisition was a powerful office set up within the Catholic Church to root out and punish heresy (as they defined it) throughout Europe and the Americas. Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years, the Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of Jews, Muslims and Bible believing Christians who would not accept Papal infallibility or submit to the dogmas, the unbiblical doctrines and practices set down in writing by the Papacy.
Having said this, keeping in mind that John is speaking about a city in a desert that is drunk with the blood of the saints, we would have to look at Mecca, the heart of the Muslim world and the harlot of Islam according to many Muslim fundamentalists. Back in 2013 a nun in Germany did a presentation in a conference of an independent investigation she had conducted of the treatment of Christians in Syria under the hands of Muslim fundamentalists. She revealed that Muslims had been butchering Christians, draining their blood in bottles, and selling each bottle for $100,000 to Muslims in Saudi Arabia who were taking it to wash their hands in Christian blood, with the belief that it atones for their sins. It is little wonder that John writes about this harlot city that in the name of religion is “drunk, satiated, and intoxicated” with the blood of those who have born testimony to Jesus.”
The “blood-letting” continues to this day and it is still happening in Saudi Arabia to Bible believing Christians while the western powers including America turn ‘a blind eye’ because they share in the harlotry of this city with which they trade for the maddening wine and the euphoric intoxication of oil. Those so called ‘Christian’ nations that trade with the harlot for this intoxicating euphoria of oil participate in her harlotry and betray their brethren. The whole history of Islam is one of bloodshed, murder and mayhem. The crossed swords on Islamic emblems, flags and banners and in the logo of the Muslim Brotherhood clearly depict Islam’s agenda to conquer the whole world and that by the sword. The two crossed swords facing upwards mean present and a future conquest and supremacy of Islam over all non-Muslims. Historically from the first century up to the present time the three main ‘Babylonian’ movements that have shed the blood of millions of God’s saints have been Imperial Rome followed by Papal Rome and perpetuated by Islam even to this day. As John wonders about what he is seeing in the Holy Spirit in his vision the angel now reveals to John the mystery of the harlot, the beast and the ten horns as it relates to his own time and to history and to the last days.
(Vs.8) “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast that he was and is not and will come.”
This beast empire the John saw was the Empire of Islam that was about to immerge out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. This would be the beast empire arising out of the sea of tossing humanity in the future and resurrected in the second beast empire. (Revelation 13:1, 11) It did not exist in John’s time. Historically the empire that ultimately toppled the Roman Empire was the Islamic Turkish Ottoman Empire. In 1922 the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the caliphate was abolished after the allies had defeated the Ottoman Turks in WW1. Today it is arising again “out of the earth.” It is being “resurrected” and that by Turkey. Today we see President Erdogan seeking to resurrect the Turkish Ottoman Empire to exceed its former glory and he is presently getting the support of the Muslim nations. Ultimately this beast empire will meet its demise at God’s hand. (Daniel 2:34-35, 44-45; 7:11, 18, 22, 26-27; 11:45) This beast empire will become so entrenched in every nation that the people of the world who have not been saved will stand in awe of the power and might of this beast empire and its ruler. In fact John writes concerning the unsaved people who worship this beast empire who say; “Who is like the beast? Who can make war with him?” (Revelation 13:4)
The fact that this empire comes up out of the abyss is that it is demonic in its power as the abyss is the place of demons. (Revelation 9:1-3) Those faithful bond slaves of the Lord Jesus whose names have been written in the Book of life from the foundation of the world will not be deceived or submit to this empire because of their loyalty and faithfulness to the Lord Jesus. Today in Islamic countries all around the world faithful New Covenant Bible believers are being tortured, murdered, and imprisoned for their faithfulness to the Lord Jesus. Indeed this beast empire “is drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.”
(Vs.9) “Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits,”
Now there are nearly 50 towns and villages of varying sizes around the world who claim the title of being located on seven hills and Rome is one of them. The Seven Hills of Rome or group of hills on or about which the ancient city of Rome was built are the Palatine Hill, the Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, and Aventine hills. In John’s time Rome was the city that reflected the culture, religions, opulence, wealth and military power of Ancient Babylon. In John’s time the City of Rome was seen figuratively as Babylon. (1 Peter 5:13)
Having said this we need to also take into account that the city John describes and that the prophet Jeremiah describes is a future city in a desert by the Red Sea and the sound of its destruction is heard there. Jeremiah writes concerning the destruction of the city of Babylon. “Therefore hear the plans that the LORD has made against Edom (Saudi Arabian land mass) and the strategies He has devised against the people of Teman (also located in the Saudis Arabian landmass): Surely the little ones of the flock will be dragged away and their pasture made desolate because of them. At the sound of their fall, the earth will quake; their cry will resound to (at) the Red Sea.” (Jeremiah 49:20-21) The quaking may well be due to the detonation of a nuclear device on the head of a missile.
Now the city of Mecca that sits in a desert by the sea is the centre of the Muslim world and one of its most important sites, Mecca in Saudi Arabia isn’t built on seven hills but in the centre of seven hills. The hills are Jabal abu Siba’, Jabal Safa, Jabal Marwah, Jabal abu Milhah, Jabal abu Ma’aya, Jabal abu Hulayah, and Jabal abu Ghuzlan. So we can see from scripture that the location of the harlot city of Babylon is at the centre of and surrounded by seven literal mountains. Let’s continue…
(Vs.10-11) “…and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction.”
The mountains also represent seven historical kingdoms or empires that have their roots in Nimrod’s Babylon. The five that had fallen were Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Greece. The one that was in the time of John was the empire of Rome being the sixth ‘mountain’ or empire. However there was to come a seventh empire in the future that would remain “for a little while.” The Roman Empire in John’s time eventually spilt into two ‘legs’ when Constantine became Emperor. He made his capital in Constantinople in the Middle East which today is known as the city of Istanbul in modern day Turkey. This was ‘the eastern leg’ of the Roman Empire that came to be known as Byzantium. Constantine supposedly converted to Christianity and left the city of Rome, being the ‘western leg’ of the Roman Empire, primarily in the hands of the Bishops of the Church, hence in time would see the immergence of the Papacy. Now In 476 A.D. Romulus, the last of the Roman emperors in the west, was overthrown by the Germanic leader Odoacer, who became the first Barbarian to rule in Rome. The order that the Roman Empire had brought to Western Europe for 1000 years was no more.
While the Western Roman Empire crumbled and fell by 476 A.D., the Byzantine Empire flourished and lasted until 1453 A.D. when Constantinople was finally conquered by the Turkish Ottoman Empire with its Caliphate. The Byzantine Empire lasted over 1,100 years. The Turkish Ottoman Empire was the seventh mountain or kingdom that toppled Rome. This seventh beast empire was the same one John saw rising up out of the sea. (Revelation 13:1) This Islamic beast empire with its caliphate remained for several hundred years until its demise in 1922. However John also tells us that there will be “an eighth king” or empire that will be “of the seven” the same as the seventh empire and that it will come out of the seventh one. This eighth empire that John saw rising up out of the earth, was the resurrection of the seventh empire, namely, the eighth empire of Islam. (Revelation 13:11) These facts coincide with history as God is the God of history. (Isaiah 46:10)
When you consider the fact that Mecca is at the centre of seven mountains it points us to the fact that all of these ancient empires had their cultural and religious roots in the Babylon of Nimrod and his wife and mother Semiramis and were all aligned in some way with the ideology of the Tower of Babel and with the blasphemous men who built it. Nimrod, the first type of the antichrist we are told was “a mighty hunter before God” however the Hebrew text of the Bible says “He was a mighty hunter in the face of God.” He was a rebel against God and his attempt to build the tower of Babel was to build a world empire that was to storm heaven if that were possible. Since the tower of Babel and down through the history of these seven empires all of their rulers have been controlled by powerful principalities or demons. (Daniel 10:13, 20) The eighth empire will be controlled by Satan himself incarnated in the man of sin. Biblically and historically this eighth empire resurrected out of the seventh empire would have to be Islam today. The harlot city that rides on the back of this Islamic beast is Mecca, the harlot of fundamentalist Islam.
(Vs.12-13) “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.”
At present the whole Islamic world is divided between the Sunnis and the Shiites and when Muslims are not killing non-Muslims they kill each other. However, with the resurrection of the Turkish Ottoman Caliphate the whole Muslim world would have their prophesied Mahdi whom they believe will lead them on a Jihad of global proportions to bring the whole world to submit to Islam. It would be another Tower of Babel in the making but God will put an end to it as He did to the first Tower of Babel.
Now we are also told that there are 10 kings who as yet have not received a kingdom. This is also in the future. These kings would have to also be Islamic; a confederation of 10 Islamic states who give their allegiance to the main beast empire which I am persuaded will be Turkey. The Koran and the Hadith would be the cement that would unite them as one. They will reign together for one hour with the main beast empire so it means that their reign will be short. The Caliph of this resurrected Islamic Turkish Ottoman Empire will depose three of these kings. (Daniel 7:7-8) As yet these ten kings have not immerged in history or as yet not identified but in existence.
(Vs.14) “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”
The war that the Islamic Beast Empire will wage will primarily be against Jews and Christians as it is today. (Daniel 11:38-40) It is a war between Satan and God as it was in the Tower of Babel. Just as Nimrod defied God so the Caliph of Islam will defy God. The beast empire and the seven nation confederation will be overthrown at the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus with and for His saints. Three of those ten kings will have already been deposed by the Caliph. The saints are God’s elect which “immediately after the tribulation of those days will gather from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.” (Matthew 24:29-31) (Mark 13:27) With His saints and powewrful angels the Lord Jesus will wage a war against the Islamic beast empire and the other nations that have joined them to defy God. All those believers whom God has chosen in his foreknowledge who have remained faithful will fight under His war banner as their Supreme Commander in Chief our Lord Jesus the Messiah. This last end-time battle is recorded by Isaiah and John. (Isaiah 63:1-6) (Revelation 19:11-21) It is against Edom (Saudi Arabia) and in both accounts the Messiah’s robes are stained with the blood of His enemies and in both accounts the winepress of God’s wrath is mentioned. It is the one and the same battle and it is against the Islamic Beast Empire and the false prophet of Islam. Both of these will go down into the lake of fire and the nations following them into the pit to await the Great White Throne Judgement. The Bible lists the names of the nations that will go down into the pit after Jesus has come back. The nations listed by name are all Islamic today. (See-Ezekiel Chapter 32)
(Vs.15) “And he *said to me, “The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.”
The waters in this context refer to the nations that this harlot trades with via the sea which Mecca does. In Chapter eighteen we see that the sea traders who have done business with this harlot standing afar off at sea while watching and lamenting its destruction. Mecca is going to burn! And so John writes…
(Vs.16-17) “And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.”
The Saudis are very scared about Iran today. The Iranian regime hates the Saudi regime and if Iran had the means they would nuke Mecca because they see it as the harlot of Islam. We are told in the prophet Isaiah that the oil reserves under the deserts of Saudi Arabia will burn and that it will make the whole region uninhabitable for humans. Isaiah the prophet writes; “For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a time of retribution for Edom’s (Saudi Arabia) hostility against Zion (God’s people the Jews and by extension and inclusion faithful New Covenant believers). Her streams will be turned to tar, and her soil to sulphur her land will become a blazing pitch (oil). It will not be quenched—day or night. Its smoke will ascend forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever again pass through it.” (Isaiah 34:8-10)
This pollution will be so bad that the shipmasters that have traded with this city will stay afar off and mourn and weep at its destruction because the oil will be burning out of control and the whole atmosphere polluted and their means of trade literally “gone up in smoke!” (Revelation 18:31-20) This is the judgement by the LORD of the harlot in whose skirts “was found the blood of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth.” (Revelation 18:24) The language John uses to describe the harlots destruction is reminiscent of the after effects of a nuclear explosion. To have ones flesh “eaten and burned by fire” aptly describes the after effects of a nuclear detonation. They say that when the atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that people’s eyes literally melted in their sockets. This will happen when the Lord Jesus comes back to judge the nations that have attacked Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:12) Added to this the smoke of the harlots burning that pollutes the atmosphere over the Saudi Arabian Peninsula may be a combination of burning oil and nuclear fallout. This is why the merchants stand afar off to witness its burning. Most likely this destruction of Mecca by fire will happen at the hands of Iran. John also tells us that God will have put it in the heart of this beast empire, of which Iran is a part, to destroy the harlot city.
Isaiah the prophet specifically foretells the destruction of Mecca in Saudi Arabia and that by Iranian missiles or due to a nuclear device. Isaiah writes; “This is an oracle concerning the Desert by the Sea (the Red Sea): Like whirlwinds sweeping through the Negev, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror (terrorism). A dire vision is declared to me: “The traitor still betrays, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, O Elam! (Iran) Lay siege, O Media! (The Kurds today) I will put an end to all her groaning.” (Isaiah 21:1-2) This is the demise of the harlot also known as “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
(Vs.18) “The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns (or has a kingdom) over the kings of the earth.”
In the light of scripture and history we see this harlot city with its roots in Nimrod’s Babylon, the source of all false religion. It is a city that has seduced the oil hungry nations that have been intoxicated by its oil. It is a city that trades via the sea and in whose skirts are found the blood of saints and of all who have been killed on earth. It is a city in a desert by the Red Sea whose underground oil reserves burn out of control due to missiles or a nuclear detonation. It is not Rome or New York but Mecca, “the city in a desert by the Sea whose destruction is heard at the Red Sea!” (Jeremiah 49:21)
